


Dogs and Their Boys

by Black_Tailed_Gull (ExpatGirl)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Breakfast, Family Bonding, Hugs, M/M, Post-Episode: s01e08 Yuri vs Yuri! The Horror!! Rostelecom Cup Short Program, Pre-Episode: s01e09 Yuri vs Yuri! The Horror!! Rostelecom Cup Free Skate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 09:10:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9228245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl/pseuds/Black_Tailed_Gull
Summary: A brief look at what happened back in Hasetsu while Yuri was skating his free program at the Rostelecom Cup. There's a lot of hugging.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aerialiste](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerialiste/gifts).



> This is the first fic I've published for this fandom, so that's exciting and terrifying. Hi!
> 
>  **A note on names:** I go with 'Yuri' rather than the more phonetic 'Yuuri', like I'd normally do, because that's how the character himself writes it. I go with 'Viktor' rather than 'Victor' and 'Makkachin' rather than 'Maccachin' because of the Slavic hard 'c' sound. YMMV, of course.

Minako meets him at the airport and immediately hugs him. Viktor hasn’t shaved in over a day and every time he blinks it feels like there are grains of sand under his eyelids; traveling always seems to deposit a thin, invisible layer of grime over everything. But her face is drawn with concern that mirrors his own, and a hug is a hug.

“The vet in town is good,” she says as they walk to the parking lot. “They went above and beyond when Yuri’s dog got sick.”

 _Yuri’s dog_. He’d almost forgotten. All these months together, and Yuri never mentions it. It seems somehow inappropriate to ask about it now.

“I’m very grateful,” he says instead. “Whatever the insurance won’t cover, I’ll reimburse, of course. As well as any money lost from the time they had to take away from their customers.”

“Here we are,” Minako says, unlocking the trunk of her boxy red car. As she buckles her seatbelt, she continues: “I don’t think that will be necessary, by the way. I had a look at the policy. It would cover a dozen surgeries. And even if it didn’t,” she looks at him out of the corner of her eye as she pulls onto the highway, “they wouldn’t charge _you._ ”

The word is heavy, but not burdensome; it only strikes him at that moment that Yuri’s family and friends watch every one of Yuri’s competitions live, and that he and Yuri haven’t been back to Hasetsu since the Cup of China. It had been easier--well, a certain kind of easy--to spend the two weeks between competitions in Saint Petersburg, at his apartment, and fly to Moscow from there.

“Ah.”

“Mm,” Minako agrees.

They sit in silence for a few moments. Cars rush past in the other direction.

“He’ll be skating soon,” Viktor says, surprised to find he did so out loud. He looks at his phone to check the time and realizes he’s forgotten to turn it back on.

A message pings, from Yakov. “You need to focus on channeling his anxiety in a useful direction. This is the big obstacle, not jumps. Good luck to Makkachin.” It probably took him forty minutes to type that out, and something like a warm wave hits Viktor square in the chest.

But the undercurrent of worry still drags at him. There is no text from Yuri, and he frowns at his phone.

“He turns his phone off when he’s stressed,” Minako chimes in, apparently able to read his expression and his thoughts despite keeping her eyes on the road. She clicks on the turn signal and changes lanes. “Which means sometimes it’s off more than it’s on. And often, he just doesn’t communicate, even when he should. I think sometimes contact--any kind--feels like, um, bombardment.”

“You’re saying he doesn’t want me to text him.”

Now, she looks at him. “You’re different.”

****

Mari’s smoking a cigarette outside of the vet’s office. From the cast of her eyes and mouth, she’s been here for hours. Maybe the whole time.

“Mom and dad went back home,” she says by way of greeting.

Viktor will parse that sentence later. For now he says: “You should go home, too. Get some sleep.”

Mari nods and runs her hand through her short hair. It’s strange to see her agitated like this. “Is Yuri...he’s never faced a competition this big on his own before...do you think he’ll be okay?”

“He’s not on his own,” Viktor tells her, thinking of Yakov’s hand on his shoulder; of Mila sweeping unsuspecting people into waltzes to cheer them up (always taking the lead, not that Viktor’s ever minded); of Yurio, who talks about Yuri perhaps even more than Viktor does. Not the same, not remotely what he wanted to give Yuri, but they are the closest thing to family that Viktor has, and they know that Yuri is precious to him, even if they don’t understand how or why. “And yes,” he says, and makes himself believe it, “he’ll be okay.”

****

Makkachin will need to remain under observation until the morning.

Viktor sleeps in Yuri’s bed that night and nobody mentions it. It’s the first time in weeks he’s slept without anybody in his arms. He wonders how he ever got used to it.

****

He’s watching the playback of Yuri’s free skate for perhaps the fifteenth time. Makkachin is still slightly groggy from the anesthetic, but he’s happy to be home, and lolls against Viktor’s leg. Viktor pauses the video. He runs his foot against Makkachin’s side and studies Yuri’s form as he enters the second jump combination. It’s different, more clinical, judging a performance solely from a screen, but the detachment has the unexpected benefit of making his analysis laser-focused. He can break the performance into a series of fine slices, translucent, letting the light shine through them, without comparing them to the memory of what it looked like live.

“Where is his mind here?” Viktor asks Makkachin. He sighs. “There’s got to be _something_ I can do for him. What do you think, hm?”  When he looks up, Yuri’s mother has opened the door. “Oh!” He tries to remember the Japanese phrase he wants, but he’s too tired. He switches to English, instead. “Good morning!”

“You left without eating anything!” She’s scolding, but smiling, too.

Hunger hits him like a gut-punch. He’d left before sunrise to make sure he got to the vet as soon as they opened, and then gotten engrossed in analysing the video. “I didn’t want to trouble you.”

“No trouble, dear,” she says. “Next time, you come find me! Now, have some breakfast before your train.”

In the dining room, she pours the tea and places a breakfast tray in front of him: white rice, miso soup, tamagoyaki. Extra large, as usual. And, as usual, he can’t make himself slow down. “This is amazing,” he says, between bites. He keeps saying it, because it keeps being true, and she never seems to grow tired of hearing it.

“It’s good you came back,” she says over her teacup, after he’s had a chance to take a few bites. “Maybe it helped him get better.”

“I...wasn’t going to,” Viktor admits, feeling guilty--though he’s not sure about what, exactly. “I hated to leave Yuri in the middle of a competition. But he insisted.”

She nods, and though her smile doesn’t falter, it does change to something quieter. “Yes. I thought so.”

“Oh?”

“I think he’s not over what happened to Vicchan.”

“Vi…” He pauses with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. Something clicks. “You call me after the dog?”

She chuckles, a warm sound. “No, he called the dog Viktor, after you, of course.”

Something else doesn’t quite click, but he says: “Of course!” and takes another bite of omelet. “Yuri never talks about it.”

“Hmm.” For once, Hiroko’s face loses all semblance of a smile. “Vicchan was sick for a while. A breathing problem. But we all thought he was getting better, and so Yuri decided not to come home until after the season was over.” She takes a sip of tea. “But then one day…” She trails off.

Instinctively, Viktor pulls Makkachin tighter against his side, digging his fingers into the soft curls of his fur.

“We didn’t tell him until after he skated in...France. I’m sorry, I don’t know the names of the competitions.”

France. Viktor had made a point of watching those routines before he’d come to Japan, and what he’d seen had confused him: he couldn’t reconcile the chaotic--if intriguing--performance from Sochi with the tightly-controlled power of the one in Paris. He’d put it down to simple inconsistency, at the time.

“That was right before the Grand Prix Final.” _And_ , he thinks, _his birthday._ He has the sudden urge to wrap Yuri in his arms, so overwhelming that it kind of hurts, but there’s nothing he can do about it right now.

“We didn’t want to tell him until after the final. He hadn’t been home in five years. We knew he’d feel so guilty. You know what he’s like. But we couldn’t keep it from him.”

For a while, neither says anything. Then Hiroko gets up and walks to a nearby drawer. She pulls out several photographs and brings them over. “He was a good dog. Yuri wanted a big one, like yours…but for once we had to tell him no. It was good for him to have someone to talk to, when he didn’t know how to talk to us.” She beams again, this time at Makkachin, then at him. “You have helped my son for many years. I hope you know that.”

It’s very likely he will cry in a moment, so he focuses on the photo in his hand, to buy time. In it, Yuri is sitting on the grass, awkward in the way of a not-quite-teen. He’s laughing as a small dog licks his face, and both of them are covered in mud.

Viktor clears his throat. “I know he was a fan. It’s very flattering.”

“A fan? Yes. He always admired your skating, above anyone else’s. But there was something else to it, too.”

“Something...else.”

She smiles into her teacup. “A mother knows these things. Usually before her children do.”

He feels his cheeks burn, and a ferocious blush creep up the back of his neck. None of them have mentioned the kiss, and he’s realizing that they probably won’t. He expected a lecture on impetuousness and lack of decorum, if nothing else. It’s what Yakov would’ve done.

“I probably know more about you than you do,” she says. “I remember...when you cut your hair--oh there was chaos in this house for days!” She laughs. “I know you’ve posed for over a dozen posters and probably a hundred magazines, because I’ve paid for them all!” Something glints in her eyes--so _that’s_ where Yuri gets it from--and she leans forward. “Some of them, twice.” 

“Wow.” He tries to bite down his curiosity, but fails. “Which ones?!”

“I’ll let him tell you that.” She starts, covers her mouth with her hand. “The time! Take our car, it will be faster.”

She sees him to the door. He’s disheveled, he knows. He forgot to comb his hair in his mad dash to get to the vet this morning, and he never bothered to put himself to rights. Probably Yuri won’t care though. She certainly doesn’t, just hugs him as though she’s been wanting to do it for a long time. He can smell the faint fried smell on her clothes, and over that, the bright citrus of her shampoo. It’s the same one Yuri uses when they’re on the road. “I hope,” she says, as she lets him go, “you’ll take good care of my boy.”

He leans down to kiss her cheek. “I’ll do my best”.


End file.
